Fede Alvarez's short, titled "Ataque de Pánico!" features giant art deco robots blowing up Uruguay's capital, Montevideo. There's plenty of explosions, buildings coming crashing to the ground, and a little bit of blood. It's been watched more than 1.5 million times since being posted at the start of November.

The producer will be working with Sam Raimi, who is sponsoring the film. A new story for the Sci-fi title will be written, and it'll be shot in Uruguay and Argentina.

Alvarez said: "I uploaded (Panic Attack!) on a Thursday and on Monday my inbox was totally full of e-mails from Hollywood studios". "If some director from some country can achieve this just uploading a video to YouTube, it obviously means that anyone could do it".

YouTube commenters lauded Alvarez, saying "What I like about this video is